Arnold's Ninth Symphony is radically and glaringly vastly different from his previous symphonies—and indeed different from practically all of his other music—a matter which gave rise to grave concern at his publishers. Its composition—fraught with illness and problems of missed deadlines and withdrawn commissions—came at the end of one of the most traumatic and hellish periods of Arnold's turbulent life.

All this is, unsurprisingly, reflected in the music. Arnold considered symphonic form to be the highest pinnacle to which the musical art could rise and this was his self-professed last essay in the genre. The bleakness of the musical landscape and the often sparse orchestration (sparse at least by comparison with his earlier symphonies) seem to this listener to derive mostly from the music of Sibelius and Shostakovich. After a dim and brooding opening, the slow movement takes the form of a long series of variations on a anthem-like melody which is at once gloriously simple and deeply disturbing. The tension throughout the symphony is almost palpable, whether one is hearing it for the first or the forty-first time. It is barely resolved in the final movement—an unusual one for Arnold since it is long and slow, unlike the vast majority of his finales which are short—sometimes to the point of brusqueness—and vivacious. This Lento is the most radical departure from any of what has gone before and is frequently compared with the Adagio of Mahler's apocalyptic Ninth Symphony. Full of angst and unresolved bitterness it eventually comes to rest on an almost triumphant note, leaving the listener with a sense that the composer has achieved an understanding and a degree of acceptance. Arnold's Ninth is destined to become an icon of late twentieth century symphonic writing.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.